Aerothermal Engineer

Apply on YC · Original job listing

• Role: Engineering / Hardware
• Experience: 3+ years
• Visa: US citizen/visa only

Own the aerothermal environment for a reentry vehicle, from first CFD run to flight-validated heat shield.

About the role

You'll be our founding aerothermal engineer and the person responsible for predicting and surviving the reentry heating environment. This is a founding role. You'll own the aerothermodynamic analysis of our reentry vehicle, size the thermal protection system, and define the aeroheating loads that every other subsystem designs against.

At our stage, this means you're doing the simulations and defending the results in hardware. You'll work directly with both founders on a daily basis. Both founders are ex-Astranis. Andrew led the avionics team, Payton was chief engineer on their next-gen satellite line.

Responsibilities

• Run hypersonic and aerothermal CFD across the reentry trajectory (peak heating, integrated heat load, transition)

• Size and validate the thermal protection system against predicted heating environments

• Define aeroheating and aerodynamic loads that drive structures, GNC, and TPS design

• Build and maintain reentry simulation workflows

• Correlate models against flight, and ground test data

• Support trajectory and vehicle shape trades to manage the heating environment

Required qualifications

• 3+ years in aerothermal, hypersonics, or reentry aerodynamics on flight or flight-relevant programs

• Hands-on hypersonic and/or aerothermal simulation experience

• Direct experience with reentry vehicles or high-speed atmospheric entry

• Proficiency with hyStrath, FUN3D, LAURA, or comparable hypersonic CFD tools